National Socialist Model Enterprise”

3 The “National Socialist Model Enterprise” Though the seizure of power by the National Socialists on 30 January 1933 did not attract much attention in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society or give particular cause for concern, it was certainly apparent to a man with clear political insight, like Haber, that this regime change would have significant consequences. In a letter to his friend and colleague, Richard Willstätter, from 24 February 1933, in addition to lamenting several personal problems, Haber reported “a feeling of disquiet with regards to the future.”1 Haber’s disquiet could only have increased in the coming days. Three days later the Reichstag burned. This introduced a state of emergency that was the pretext for the Enabling Act, the overriding of German constitu- tional law and the systematic persecution of political opponents and dissidents – primarily Communists in the beginning, then Social Democrats, trade unionists and leftwing intellectuals as well. However, political developments were not the only cause for concern at the time. The military also tried to take advantage of the rapid political changes, pushing forward plans for a secret central military chemical research institute. The primary party responsible was the Army Ord- nance Office (Heereswaffenamt), which had already funded secret research into poisonous gases by Göttingen chemist Gerhart Jander. The Prussian Ministry of Culture, led by Bernhard Rust, and the Reich Ministry for Home Affairs, led by Wilhelm Frick, both of whom were amongst Hitler’s Guard “Old Fighters,”also sup- ported plans to offer Jander better and broader research opportunities in Berlin, as he had only a modest laboratory in Göttingen. This also fulfilled a promise Hitler had made to Jander; Jander had been assured a promotion should the National Socialists come to power.2 Haber’s institute came to play a central role in these plans because of its chemical weapons research during the First World War. It also appears that Haber knew about the proposal relatively early in its development, having been asked in February of 1933 about possible locations for such an institute. As the “father of chemical warfare,” Haber had no fundamental objections to such an institute nor to ramping up research into chemical weapons in Germany, but he wanted to protect his own institute from being taken over by the military and the new government. Hence, he argued that Dahlem was not a suitable loca- tion for an armaments research institute because the area had become densely populated with villas in the years since the First World War, and he recommended that the research facility be located near the gas plant in Breloh instead. 1Werner,HaberWillstätter, p. 123. 2 Szöllösi-Janze, Haber, p. 652. 3 The “National Socialist Model Enterprise” Fig. 3.1. Institute grounds circa 1939. Notice the dedicationto Haber around the “Haber Linden” has been removed. There was an inspection of possible premises for the new institute on April 11 – not, as it turned out, of the gas plant in Breloh but of the former Prussian Research Institute for Hygiene and Immunology on Garystrasse in Dahlem, which had not been used since the death of its director. The idea of refitting this institute also appears to have been provided by Haber, since after the inspection Jander voiced his suspicion that Haber had only suggested the Hygiene institute, which was small and unsuitable for the proposed research, to prevent them taking over the more generous rooms of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.3 Ousters and Reorganizations Haber’s institute was not the only target of intrigues by the new regime and the military; the entire KWG became a focus for National Socialist revisions of Ger- man science policy. Given that a significant share of its investment capital came from Jewish donors, a considerable number of its senators were Jewish and many Jewish scientists had made the most of the career opportunities offered by its non-university research institutes, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society came to be seen in National Socialist circles as under Jewish influence, even “part of the Jewish clan.” To quote Philipp Lenard, a long-standing Nazi and the father of the Deutsche 3 GSTA, Bl. 33. 90 Ousters and Reorganizations Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service “The Reich Government has enacted the following Law … § 3 (1) Civil servants who are not of Aryan descent are to be retired; … § 4 Civil servants whose pre- vious political activities afford no assur- ance that they will at all times give their fullest support to the national state, can be dismissed from the service.” This law, promulgated on 7 April 1933, served to enforce the political conformity of civil servants and formed an early peak in the persecution and disenfranchisement of citizens of Jew- ish descent in Germany. As there were no strict regulatory statutes attached, the law was also used as a basis for the dismissal of privately employed as well as self-employed professionals such as physicians and lawyers. The so- called “Paragraph on Aryans” allowed – until the Nürnberg Laws of 1935 – the exemption of civil servants who entered service before WWI, WWI frontline sol- diers and civil servants whose fathers or sons fell in WWI. Since the KWG was a private organization, the law applied only to those of its institutes that received more than half of their funding from the state. Such institutes were then treated like universities or state research institutions, and this was in fact the case for Haber’s institute. On 27 April 1933, the General Administration of the KWG sent out directives to the institutes requesting that their members fill out questionnaires about their descent and political allegiance. Dismissals were issued based on the evaluation of these questionnaires. In the KWG, there were 126 dismissals, or about 11%; the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry was affected more adversely than any other KWG institute. German universities lost on average about a third of their faculty as a conse- quence of the Law, but there were substantial disciplinary and regional differences. For instance the universities of Rostock or Tübingen remained essentially intact, as the spirit of anti-Semitism endemic at these universities had tacitly precluded appoint- ments of Jewish faculty even before 1933. On the other hand, liberal universities, such as Berlin or Frankfurt University, were affected so strongly that their international rep- utation and academic status were considerably damaged. Disciplinary differences were also significant: disciplines such as theoretical physics or art history largely relocated to Anglo-Saxon countries, whereby the forced migration of figures such as Albert Einstein or Aby Warburg represented but the tip of the iceberg. 91 3 The “National Socialist Model Enterprise” Physik movement, “this entirely Jewish affair simply needs to be gotten rid of.” His colleague, Johannes Stark, wanted a “new spirit” to be imposed upon the Society at the very least. The Prussian Minister of Culture expressed a similar sentiment, which had more serious bureaucratic implications. It was hardly a coincidence, given the grounds for their criticism of the KWG, that they came to focus much of their attention on Haber’s institute. As a result, in the following years, the Institute would become a textbook example of National Socialist science policy.4 The Institute had the highest share of “non-Aryan” permanently-employed scientists of any KWG. This had been a cause for public debate even during the Weimar Republic, and in spring of 1933, it led to denunciations and attracted other forms of unwanted attention from the Party and the ministerial bureau- cracy.5 The landmark “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” was passed on 7 April 1933. In light of this law, on April 21, the personnel officer of the Ministry of Culture, Johannes Achelis, threatened to post a State Commis- sioner at the KWG, an act which would have threatened the very existence of the Society, if the KWI for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry did not imme- diately respond to the new legislation and fundamentally change its staff by the end of the Easter break.6 It is difficult to assess accurately whether this was an expression of the anti-Semitic policies of the government or the ambitions of the military with respect to its plans to use the Institute for weapons research. Regard- less, the Civil Service Law became the gateway for Jander and his backers to take over the Institute. Initially, the KWG’s General Administration heeded the ministerial demands and pressured Haber to do the same. The institute was required to make immediate and significant changes to its personnel. According to a memo from Achelis’s this was the only way “to keep leading intellectuals, should they be Jewish.”This technique was part of the Society’s strategy of “self-adjustment” or “Selbstgleichschaltung.” By anticipating and obediently following the minutiae of state requirements, they hoped to avoid serious National Socialist interventions, such as the appointment of a State Commissioner at the KWG, and retain as much institutional auton- omy as possible. Enforcing the Civil Service Law was a central element in the KWG self-adjustment policy, as were aligning Society research activities with the expectations set by government policy and reorganizing the Senate and other governing bodies. The hope was that by strictly implementing the law in the mid- dle and lower ranks of its staff, the Society would be granted permission to keep its preeminent Jewish scientists. Max Planck, President of the KWG, expressed this view in May 1933 on his first official visit to Hitler. He not only said that getting rid of important scientists, such as Haber, would damage German science and Germany as a whole, but added “that there are, in fact, different types 4 Cf.

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